Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on February 26, 2012 at 4:59pm

RE: "Were God to exist, and if everything that exists were to be His creation...."

That's two "if's" too many --

pax vobiscum,
archaeopteryx
www.in-His-own-image.com

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Unseen on February 26, 2012 at 5:10pm

LOL

And yet, that is the landscape the Christian lives in.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Unseen on February 26, 2012 at 4:15pm

He's right. If you want truly "objective" good. Good which is REALLY good and not because it's what we like, prefer, or  want, then it has to come from a source independent of man. Without God, it's what you might call "good by committee."

I think one of the burdens of atheism is to make the best of a situation where there is no real objective good.

We can kind of objective-ize it through legislative or quasi-legislative means, but there is no external and independent and eternal Good to refer to.

It's like Sartre, an atheist, said:

The existentialist... thinks it very distressing that God does not exist, because all possibility of finding values in a heaven of ideas disappears along with Him; there can no longer be an a priori Good, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. Nowhere is it written that the Good exists, that we must be honest, that we must not lie; because the fact is we are on a plane where there are only men.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Unseen on February 26, 2012 at 4:42pm

But there you go, implying that there is something objective by which one can judge God. Where does THAT come from? From human whims, desires, fears, preferences. Is Good by Human Fiat all that better than Because God Says So? And by "better" I mean "more justified."

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Violet Chartreuse on February 26, 2012 at 7:39pm

Thank you all for your help. My debate on fb has withered and ended. I am left to ponder all the valuable and philosophical points you have made here. In the end, I find myself contemplating the rather simple-minded thought that if the Christian God was all-powerful he would have smitten that pesky creator of evil, Satan, long ago and delivered all his beloved creatures from emotional turmoil and eternal fiery torment in the first place. That would have been a "good" thing to do if one was all-powerful.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Denise Mares on February 26, 2012 at 8:33pm

Most Roman Catholics do not use the King James version of the bible. According to the catholic.org, “The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) is a Catholic translation of the Bible published in 1985. The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) has become the most widely used Roman Catholic Bible outside of the United States.” I think the New Living Bible is also an approved version.

Rick Santorum’s background is as an Evangelical Protestant. I don't know at what age he became Catholic, however, it appears no one informed him if something important about Catholics: the Church does not believe in the literal interpretation of the bible, specifically the Old Testament. He definitely doesn't demonstrate the values of most mainstream American Catholics. He is far more outspoken and extremist in his beliefs. But that doesn't lessen my worries about his viability as a valid candidate.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Kir Komrik on February 27, 2012 at 12:30am

Hey Violet,

Is this an intellectual exercise or are you trying to deconvert others? My intellectual answer is that "good" is a public myth; i.e. it is a meaningless construct.

- kk

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Unseen on February 27, 2012 at 9:49am

"Good" is meaningless? Hardly.

When you choose the apple fritter over the glazed donut, it's because in your judgment the one is better than the other.

Whenever someone chooses to give up a kidney to save another person, they are making a judgment based on some sort of concept of The Good.

I don't get what's so "intellectual" about your rather flip statement that the good is a public myth.

Explain.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Kir Komrik on February 27, 2012 at 10:01pm

Hey Unseen,

It looks like I do need to explain. The term "good" as used here is contextually defined to be referring to "good" in a moral sense, not in some subjective perception of taste, smell, appearance or something like that. Taste for foods such as "glazed donuts" is irrelevant. Given that morality is a public myth, that necessarily makes any moral concept of "good" just part of that public myth.

 

Morality as a public myth has been discussed in other threads, but I can post on that again if you're interested. Basically, it came out of the discussion "Atheists cannot be moral" in which I concluded that "morality" was a fallacious and fictitious construct.

 

- kk

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Unseen on February 28, 2012 at 10:54am

Well, my own view is that "morality" attaches to a prescriptive system and all one has to do is decide if one is following the prescribed behavior (The Ten Commandments, The Golden Rule). Ethics involves actually thinking about what the best thing to do is for oneself, and to the extent one is altruistic, for others. Weighing everything, and then making a choice. So we may largely agree.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on February 28, 2012 at 5:03pm

I've no doubt, that with that assurance, Kir will sleep much better tonight.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Unseen on February 28, 2012 at 5:20pm

I'm sure.

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• Next ›
• Page